This is what writer Michael Ruhlman endeavors to learn as he goes through an accelerated program at the prestigious Culinary Institute of America (CIA). Here, he encounters a particular type of kitchen snobbery--he is merely a writer, not a real cook. The distinct implication seems to be that he is not as strong physically or morally as his teachers. By driving through snowstorms and taking an obsessive pleasure in determining what makes a perfect brown sauce (pale roux or dark?--he eventually decides on dark, although he happily makes it with pale when time is an issue) the author manages to earn the respect of his instructors and colleagues. His highest compliment comes when a fellow student says that he wouldn't have known Michael wasn't a cook.
The CIA training has a decidedly classical bent--French sauces and methods are the cornerstone of all other culinary instruction. Recipes are not as important as ratio--flour to water, or oil to vinegar, the ratios are key. As much as the author stresses this difference between home and restaurant cooking, he rarely reveals what any of these ratios are, and never enough to be able to recreate the dishes he describes preparing. A shame, since they so frequently sound tempting--sauteed veal with sauce champignon, herb focaccia with Tuscan sausage. A thorough knowledge of ratios, combined with an equal mastery of kitchen chemistry, allows chefs (and those of us at home, if only we knew them all) to be particularly creative with leftovers and random ingredients--once you know everything an substance is capable of, then you can exploit those possibilites.
Classes themselves seek to emulate the restaurant kitchen experiece as closely as possible, where speed is of primary importance, but still without sacrificing quality. Perfection is constantly sought, from having a perfectly even dice on your vegetables, to having the plate warm enough for the food without burning the customer. Nothing is considered a sufficient excuse for failing to put exquisitely prepared food on the plate for the customer, even kitchen disasters that if they happened at home, would have me calling the nearest pizza joint for takeout. Students are highly stressed as a result, a condition that professional employment will likely only increase--the pressure is never off. Holidays will be a distant memory--someone has to prepare the Christmas dinners and Mother's Day brunches. And that someone will always be them. Perhaps staying in your own kitchen isn't so bad, after all.
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